You know that primaries matter — and when it comes to the future of our country and the world, presidential primaries matter exponentially. Our presidential nominee will set the tone for the entire Democratic Party in this extremely pivotal election year.

DFA was founded out of the presidential primary in 2004, and our members have voted on whether or not we should get involved in every contested presidential primary since then. While we’ve always done powerful and effective work in presidential campaigns, DFA has never actually endorsed a specific candidate in a contested presidential primary before. But that could all change this year, IF one candidate receives the support of a super-majority of DFA’s members.

The very first votes in the 2016 election will be cast on February 1 in Iowa. This means that, if we endorse, we will immediately hit the ground running, devoting real resources — people, time and money — to helping your chosen candidate win the nomination.

DFA is a people-powered organization. To maximize your opportunity to vote and to rally your friends and family to vote too, we’re keeping this poll open until 10:59pm Central Time on Tuesday, December 15.

To be completely clear: DFA’s number one priority in 2016 is to make sure the Democratic nominee — no matter who it is — wins the White House in November. Period.

And, if we do endorse in the primary, we’ll work hard for your chosen candidate. But we won’t tear down other Democratic Party candidates in the process. Our goal will be to run a 100% positive campaign that will put the nominee in the strongest position to beat Donald Trump — or whomever the Republicans nominate — on Election Day.

Here’s how DFA’s presidential endorsement process will work:

The endorsement vote is live right now and will end at 10:59pm Central Time on Tuesday, December 15.

Just like in a real election, you will need to work hard to maximize support for your candidate if you want them to win this endorsement. That means getting your friends, family and other like-minded progressives to cast their votes for your candidate as well — on Facebook, Twitter, over email, on the phone, or however you want to spread the word!

DFA will only endorse in this presidential primary if there is overwhelming support for one candidate from our members. That means that, just like in 2007 when we last conducted an official presidential endorsement vote, we will only endorse if one candidate reaches the super-majority threshold of 67% (two-thirds of votes cast, or 66.67% to be technical about it).

On Thursday, December 17 — after a complete security review of the votes — we will announce the results.

I can’t wait to find out what DFA members will decide. Can one candidate earn our support? Will your candidate win?

Weekly Action Item

Stop Trump TV. Go to freepress.net, sign up for emails and complete the contact form to the FCC opposing the Sinclair-Tribune merger. Freepress has filed a Petition to Deny the merger with the FCC. You can still send a comment directly to the FCC. You can see the filing here.